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Fra Angelico
Wednesday, July 20, 2005, 4:00 a.m.
The first American retrospective devoted to the work of the great Italian Renaissance artist known as Fra Angelico (1390/5-1455) – and the first comprehensive presentation of his work assembled anywhere in the world in half a century – will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 26. More than 50 public institutions and private collections in Europe and America will participate in the landmark exhibition, which commemorates the 550th anniversary of the artist's death. Fra Angelico will feature nearly 80 drawings, paintings, and manuscript illuminations from throughout his career, supplemented by 45 additional works by his assistants and closest followers. Highlights of the exhibition include recently discovered paintings and new attributions, paintings never before displayed publicly, and reconstructed groupings of works, some of them reunited for the first time.
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The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult
Wednesday, July 20, 2005, 4:00 a.m.
Ghosts, spirit séances, levitation, auras, ectoplasm … extraordinary photographs of these and other paranormal phenomena will be on display at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult, an exhibition devoted to the historical intersections between photography and the once wildly popular interest in spiritualism, on view from September 27 to December 31, 2005.
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THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART ANNOUNCES 2005-2006 SEASON OF CONCERTS
Thursday, July 7, 2005, 4:00 a.m.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art presents the 52nd season of its acclaimed concert series in 2005-2006, 76 events ranging from a three-part piano recital series, Bach cantatas in the Medieval Sculpture Hall, and Flamenco music and dance, to a master class with Jordi Savall, Beethoven by the Beaux Arts Trio, and an evening of doo-wop from the 1940s and 1950s. The season is the 37th programmed by Concerts & Lectures General Manager Hilde Limondjian.
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The Art of Medicine in Ancient Egypt
Tuesday, July 5, 2005, 4:00 a.m.
A long-neglected area of Egyptian art – works associated with protection and healing – will be explored in the exhibition The Art of Medicine in Ancient Egypt, opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in fall 2005. By focusing on this fundamental, yet little-known aspect of Egyptian art, the exhibition will provide a new perspective on some 65 of the most beautiful and intriguing works from the Museum's renowned collection. The centerpiece will be the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus – the sole borrowed work in the exhibition – which is on loan from the New York Academy of Medicine. This manuscript, dating from the Second Intermediate Period (ca. 1650-1550 B.C.), is one of only two complete medical texts from ancient Egypt. Rarely seen even by Egyptologists, the manuscript's presentation at the Metropolitan represents its first public display in more than half a century.
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Pearls of the Parrot of India: The Emperor Akbar's Illustrated Khamsa, 1597-98
Monday, June 27, 2005, 4:00 a.m.
In India in the late 16th century, the Mughal emperor Akbar – a great patron of the arts – amassed an extensive library of some 20,000 beautifully illustrated and illuminated manuscripts. One of them, a lavishly ornamented copy of the Khamsa (Quintet of Tales) by Amir Khusrau Dihlavi (1253-1325), will be on view at the Metropolitan Museum beginning October 14, 2005, in the exhibition Pearls of the Parrot of India: The Emperor Akbar's Illustrated Khamsa, 1597-98.
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"Get Modern at the Met" A Year-Long Focus on Modern and Contemporary Art At The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Monday, June 27, 2005, 4:00 a.m.
From Coco Chanel's iconic little black dress to Sol LeWitt's sculptural "splotches," to the exotic textiles that inspired Henri Matisse – and more – The Metropolitan Museum of Art will display an unprecedented number of modern and contemporary art exhibitions this year and into 2006, featuring a wide variety of artists and media. Visitors to the Museum will also experience the lyrical architecture of Santiago Calatrava, the artistic inventions of Tony Oursler and Robert Rauschenberg, and the gentle watercolors of David Milne.
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Santiago Calatrava: Sculpture into Architecture
Monday, June 20, 2005, 4:00 a.m.
Santiago Calatrava, the world-renowned architect who has designed some of the most beautiful structures of our epoch, is the subject of a new exhibition, Santiago Calatrava: Sculpture into Architecture, opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 18, 2005. This exhibition, on view through January 22, 2006, will demonstrate that many of the forms of his celebrated buildings originated in his independent works of art.
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Rara Avis: Selections from the Iris Apfel Collection
Monday, June 20, 2005, 4:00 a.m.
The Costume Institute will celebrate one of America's quintessential stylemakers this fall with an exhibition of accessories and fashion from Iris Apfel. On view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from September 13, 2005, to January 22, 2006, Rara Avis: Selections from the Iris Apfel Collection will spotlight 40 objects, exploring the affinity between fashion and accessory designs and examining the power of dress and accessories to assert style above fashion, the individual above the collective.
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Photographs from Recently Acquired Gilman Collection on View at Metropolitan Museum
Monday, June 20, 2005, 4:00 a.m.
A rotating selection of pivotal, iconic works from The Metropolitan Museum of Art's recent landmark acquisition of the Gilman Paper Company Collection, entitled Master Photographs from the Gilman Collection: A Landmark Acquisition, will be on view this summer in The Howard Gilman Gallery and, in two installments through April 2006, in the Robert Wood Johnson, Jr. Gallery.
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SCHEDULE OF EXHIBITIONS MAY - AUGUST 2005
Monday, June 6, 2005, 4:00 a.m.
EDITORS PLEASE NOTE: Information provided below is subject to change.
To confirm scheduling and dates, call the Communications Department at (212) 570-3951.
CONTACT NUMBER FOR USE IN TEXT IS (212) 535-7710.
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Matisse: The Fabric of Dreams
Wednesday, June 1, 2005, 4:00 a.m.
The first exhibition to explore Henri Matisse's (1869–1954) lifelong fascination with textiles and its profound impact on his art will open at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on June 23, 2005. Matisse: The Fabric of Dreams – His Art and His Textiles features 45 painted works and 31 drawings and prints displayed alongside examples from Matisse's personal collection of fabrics, costumes, and carpets. The exhibition marks the first public showing of Matisse's textile collection – referred to by the artist as his "working library" – which has been packed away in family trunks since Matisse's death in 1954. The exhibition remains on view at the Metropolitan through September 25, 2005.
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Tony Oursler at the Met: "Studio" and "Climaxed"
Wednesday, May 18, 2005, 4:00 a.m.
Tony Oursler at the Met: "Studio" and "Climaxed," at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from May 17 to September 18, 2005, presents two installations by the internationally renowned artist Tony Oursler (American, b. 1954) that have never before been on view in the United States.
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Metropolitan Museum Announces Summer 2005 Programs For Children and Their Families
Wednesday, May 11, 2005, 4:00 a.m.
Summer activities for children and families at The Metropolitan Museum of Art –featuring regularly scheduled weekday and weekend classes, including a weekly Spanish-language program – will begin with a special Gallery Workshop for Families at The Cloisters on July 2, and will conclude with the program Look Again! on August 7. Additional highlights include special Holiday Monday programs on July 4, a film screening on Saturday, July 16, and a final workshop at The Cloisters on Saturday, August 6. These programs for children up to age 12 and their adult companions are free with Museum admission, and all materials are provided.
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Metropolitan Museum to Present Unprecedented Chanel Exhibition
Wednesday, May 4, 2005, 4:00 a.m.
CHANEL —The Costume Institute's major spring exhibition—will be presented in The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Special Exhibition Galleries from May 5 to August 7, 2005. Nearly 34 years after the passing of Gabrielle "Coco" Chanel, the spirit of the house of Chanel will be manifested this spring in an extraordinary presentation of iconic fashions from Coco Chanel to Karl Lagerfeld.
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Metropolitan Museum Presents Special Exhibition of Chanel
Monday, April 25, 2005, 4:00 a.m.
Chanel —The Costume Institute's major spring exhibition—will be presented at The Metropolitan Museum of Art from May 5 through August 7, 2005. The spirit of the House of Chanel will be re-created in a landmark presentation of iconic fashions from Coco Chanel to Karl Lagerfeld.
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Sol LeWitt on the Roof: Splotches, Whirls and Twirls
Wednesday, April 13, 2005, 4:00 a.m.
Five sculptures and one wall-drawing by the celebrated American artist Sol LeWitt (born 1928) will go on view in The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden of The Metropolitan Museum of Art on April 26, 2005. A prolific artist since his emergence in the mid-1960s, LeWitt will show recent painted fiberglass sculptures, Splotches, as well as a unique wall-drawing created for the Roof Garden's eastern wall. The works will be exhibited in the 10,000-square-foot open-air space that offers spectacular views of Central Park and the New York City skyline. The installation will mark the eighth single-artist installation on the Cantor Roof Garden.
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Defining Yongle: Imperial Art in Early Fifteenth-Century China
Wednesday, March 23, 2005, 5:00 a.m.
Featuring some 50 extraordinary works of art, Defining Yongle: Imperial Art in Early Fifteenth-Century China will explore a crucial moment in the development of imperial Chinese art, and its relationship to later traditions. On view will be sculptures, paintings, lacquers, metalwork, ceramics, textiles, and ivories created in the imperial workshops during the reign of the Yongle Emperor (r. 1403-1424). Important recent acquisitions – such as a gilt-bronze sculpture, Manjushri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, and a rare lacquer sutra box with incised gold decoration (qiangjin) – will be presented along with 12 works (embroidered silks and works in cloisonné, ivory, and lacquer) acquired since 1990. Fifteen loans, many from New York collections, will supplement 33 objects drawn from the Metropolitan Museum's permanent collection.
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Ann G. Tenenbaum Named Elective Trustee at Metropolitan Museum
Thursday, March 17, 2005, 5:00 a.m.
Ann G. Tenenbaum has been elected to the Board of Trustees of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, it was announced today by James R. Houghton, the Museum's Chairman. The election took place at the March 8 meeting of the Board of Trustees.
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Metropolitan Museum Acquires World-Renowned Collection of Photographs from The Howard Gilman Foundation
Tuesday, March 15, 2005, 5:00 a.m.
(New York, March 16, 2005)—The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Howard Gilman Foundation announced jointly today that the Museum has acquired the Gilman Paper Company Collection, widely regarded as the world's finest collection of photographs in private hands. With exceptional examples of 19th-century French, British, and American photographs, as well as masterpieces from the turn-of-the-century and modernist periods, the Gilman Collection has played a central role in establishing photography's historical canon and has long set the standard for connoisseurship in the field. In addition to many unique and beautiful icons of photography by such masters as Julia Margaret Cameron, Roger Fenton, Nadar, Gustave Le Gray, Mathew Brady, Carleton Watkins, Edward Steichen, and Man Ray, the Gilman Collection includes extensive bodies of work by numerous pioneers of the camera. The collection was acquired through purchase, complemented by a generous gift from the Foundation. It contains more than 8,500 photographs, dating primarily from the first century of the medium, 1839-1939.
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SPECIAL EVENT FOR CHILDREN ON SATURDAY, APRIL 2, AT THE CLOISTERS
Tuesday, March 15, 2005, 5:00 a.m.
Children ages four through 12 and their families are invited to attend Hear Me Roar! – an hour-long program on Saturday, April 2, at The Cloisters, the branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art devoted to the art and architecture of medieval Europe.